Plot: Oliver (Stephen Amell) travels to a remote South American island Corto Maltese in search of his sister, Thea (Willa Holland). Back home in Starling City, Laurel (Katie Cassidy) struggles to channel her anger over Sara’s death into something positive and Felicity (Emily Bett Rickards) starts her new job at Queen Consolidated.
Thea Queen returns! And might I say she looks fantastic. Like, if the trade off for getting boiling hot wax repeatedly poured on your hand by your emotionally manipulative, villainous father is a bangin’ haircut and a five-month stay on a sun-kissed South American island, then sign me up. OK, maybe not, but you get what I’m saying.
This week’s Arrow finally revealed what Malcolm (John Barrowman) and Thea have been up to since he whisked her away from Starling City, but rather than feeling focused solely on her, the whole episode felt really lady-centric in a way that I don’t think the show ever has before.
Oliver Queen, for all his solitude and brooding, has always been surrounded by powerful women. Shado, Helena, the late, great Sara and even his own Lady Macbeth-esque mother Moira — each of them were self-possessed and confident in a way Oliver never has been either before or after the island. Yet the show has always felt very male. When Oliver didn’t take the spotlight, it explored the emotional journeys of Diggle, Roy or even Tommy outside of how they related to our hero. The female characters have never been afforded that kind of focus, always feeling like accessories in his story. With “Corto Maltese,” however, the three remaining women in Oliver’s life took steps toward coming into their own power while the boys mostly did some stunt work and chased a MacGuffin that only served to tell us information we already know: Amanda Waller (Cynthia Addai-Robinson) is the worst boss ever and John Diggle (David Ramsey) is the man we all want to marry.
The first woman, of course, was Oliver’s half-sister Thea. We picked up right where Season 2 left her, getting into a car with her father and vowing to never feel powerless again. Perhaps with the exception of Laurel (we’ll get to her later), Thea has had the roughest life since the show began. She lost her brother and father as a child only to have the former come back an emotionally distant shell of himself and discover that the latter was never related to her at all. Then, to top it all off, she watched her mother sacrifice herself and learned that everyone she loved was lying to her. Anyone would be desperate for control after all that.
As someone who called for the death of Thea most of last year, I’m surprised how invested I am in her story now. Thea was always a little hard to root for when she was just a whiny rich girl, but now that she’s taking action not to feel victimized all the time instead of just complaining about it, she’s become much more interesting. I liked confident, self-possessed Thea and Willa Holland did some fine work here with her best scene being the heartfelt talk she shared with Oliver. Much as I think it’s a good idea for Oliver to lay everything out on the table, given his trouble with his identity, it doesn’t make sense that he would. Not yet, at least. But to see him so tender and desperate to reconnect with his sister over the shared awfulness of each of them having to watch a parent sacrifice themselves so they could live was really effective. By far my favorite thing about season three so far has been the focus on character over plot. Last season was about world-building and this season has been smaller in scope but far more meaningful.
http://youtu.be/YPggEhSTHSM
Speaking of character work, this episode was another attempt to get the audience to invest in Laurel’s journey toward becoming the Black Canary, but it wasn’t nearly as successful as the last. Much like Thea, Laurel embraced physical strength as a means of feeling more powerful, but typical of her past of solitary stubbornness, she didn’t immediately seek out a mentor and got pretty severely injured for it. Making her transition from lawyer to vigilante was always going to be an uphill battle and I’m not sure the writers are making a convincing case so far. Oliver himself delivered a pretty strong argument against it when she asked him to train her. Seeing how becoming strong physically made both Sara and Oliver more confident certainly makes it understandable, but she’s missing a fundamental point. On some level, they both hated who they became. Sara, until the very end, was troubled by being a killer and Oliver has spent the whole season wondering if he will ever be able to be happy. It makes perfect sense that he wouldn’t want to encourage anyone to become like him. Though that reluctance certainly didn’t stop Roy last season and if the presence of Ted Grant (played by J.R. Ramirez’s abs and who eventually becomes Wildcat in the comics), Laurel won’t likely be deterred either.
Finally, and much more light-heartedly, Felicity started back at QC working with Ray Palmer (Brandon Routh). While she returned expecting to once again take up the role of the beleaguered executive assistant to an eccentric CEO, Palmer surprised her by giving her an EA of her own and setting her up in Oliver’s old office. That Felicity essentially had to abandon her career in service of Oliver’s needs has always been a tough pill to swallow and it was really gratifying to see someone finally take notice of her skill and really acknowledge what an asset she is. Oliver and Team Arrow may understand how important her skills are–a charming scene where she juggles listening to Palmer, throwing a little shade at Laurel’s expectation that she will help her and helping Diggle find a traitorous A.R.G.U.S agent showed that–but they take that skill for granted. Felicity is in demand (in more ways than one given she’s going to Central City and The Flash next week to get her flirt on with Barry Allen (Grant Gustin)), so it’s going to be really fun to watch her balance her growing confidence as a businesswoman and how that conflicts with her time on Team Arrow.
There was one more powerful lady in this episode. Nyssa al Ghul (Katrina Law), League of Assassins member and ex-lover of Sara Lance, made a surprise appearance at the very end of the episode. While the other women in Oliver’s life are on journeys to becoming more powerful, Nyssa already is. She’s an unrepentant assassin who left moral qualms long ago and I’ve been anticipating her reaction to Sara’s death since it first happened. I’ve been anticipating her father’s appearance even longer. Is it Wednesday yet?
Rating: 6/10
http://youtu.be/1Zu2dS9Fayk?list=UUPWQWav6BpPvtanCtloXkiw
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